"Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it."

South_coast

QueenJess said:

I tried to take money out of Paypal the other day (from a survey reward), forgetting it had to be a minimum of £1..

I don't have a minimum for PayPal 🤔?

greenbee

There was money left over at the end of the month, so that's been split between savings and mortgage. Which then made me realise that I need to chase up the landscaper to get the work booked in and/or find someone else to quote. Also on the list for this weekend is contacting my old employer to get P11D details so I can finish my tax return and making inquiries of a couple of cleaners (one a company, one an individual) to see whether I can get some help in the house again with cleaning and ironing. 

I've got my tomato factory in the greenhouse up and running along with some peppers and aubergines, and there's chard, broad beans and lambs' lettuce doing well outside. Some of the peppers and aubergines would probably appreciate larger pots, which would then free theirs up for the poor pot-bound chillies!

Two planters that had salad in them need re-sowing. But not with the same stuff at the same time! 

Work is going OK - I've been seconded to a project for so long I barely know what I'm doing, but we've recruited a few more people and although they haven't been with us long I think they're going to be a huge weight off me and my boss. Who is off for a few days leaving me in charge  

I've also booked a trip home to see my mum. I'd put off booking it as I was mostly cross about the fact that I clearly can't drive myself there and back (I'd normally stop off with friends to break the journey) given that 10-15 minutes into the local town is a struggle. But taxis are booked, and I'm just grateful I can afford them.

The Long Covid Clinic have referred me to the Fatigue Clinic who have a specific Long Covid management programme. The aim is to be able to be more active, drive further as it really affects my independence, and be able to cope with work travel when it starts up again. So I have a 76-page booklet to read, a somewhat depressing report to my GP, and permission to start exercising with 5 minutes of yoga/pilates a couple of times a week. Which I haven't started yet and need to build into my routine (well, TBH, I need to create a routine). 

greenbee

I finally got my P11D from my old employer, so decided to finish my tax return - it appears that either I hadn't started it, or I'd forgotten to save it! Plus they've changed the template (it does day it's a beta, and I'm pretty sure it was alpha last time I looked at it, so maybe the data went with the change). It didn't take too long to complete (it's never as bad as I think it'll be - but I MUST remember to print out gift aid emails when they arrive) and my lump sum pension payment means I'm getting a decent rebate this year. Of course, they don't ask about regular vs. one-off payments, so my tax code adjustment assumes I'm going to pay a lot more into my pension this year than is currently going to happen. Then again, who knows - if my savings are looking good it might work out.

All the announcements about travel mean that work travel is potentially back on the agenda for August/Sept onwards. TBH I'm not thrilled. It'll be nice to see people (meet my colleagues in person for the first time) but the thought of airports and planes and hotels and long days in offices isn't quite so thrilling. 

maggiem

I know what you mean about travel greenbee. I did a job for a couple of years where I was travelling constantly. At first it felt very glamorous but it quickly became incredibly tedious. Whilst I was 'there' wherever that was I hardly saw the place and hotels and packing / unpacking got very boring. Also flights often leave very early or arrive late to try and get a bit of work in that day so being picked up at 2200 at the local airport on a Friday night was very common. Hope you can control it better than I did! 

greenbee

@maggiem - thankfully the US don’t appear to be planning on letting us in anytime soon, so I’ve stopped worrying about the travel for now!

End of month money sorting done - another mortgage OP, another lump into savings. Thanks to the change in tax code due to one-off pension contributions and an erroneous adjustment to my health insurance figure that I can’t correct, I’m getting paid a lot more at the moment. However, as they’ll probably want it all back next year I’ve decided to work out what the extra income is (roughly) and stick it into premium bonds so that it doesn’t get mixed up with other savings.

Car insurance renews today and needs paying (a quick check revealed that wasn’t worth the hassle of changing - maybe next year I’ll bother!). House insurance due soon too, but I know that needs to stay with the current provider as the wider postcode is high flood risk and this is the only one I’ve found that doesn’t penalise me for it. 

Miserable weather, so it looks like the weekend will involve housework and admin!

greenbee

Car insurance eventually paid, after some effort… 

July’s mortgage OP takes me to over £10k in OPs and has moved repayment date to Sept 2037. Next month will see the total owed drop below £230k.

Struggling with NS&I as I have an existing number for an old account, but can’t access any of the details or reset them as it is linked to an old address and email address. I will have to write to them, but must have a look first to see whether I have archived the old account details rather than just binning them! For now, the monthly extra has been moved to my normal savings account.

My mum is staying, so over the weekend we tackled the garage. It’s looking much better (I sawed/chopped lots of wood for kindling/firewood), and lots to get rid of. Someone is picking up the kids’ bed guard today, my brother is coming over later too and should take quite a bit with him!

greenbee

NS&I sorted, and first lot of PBs purchased. Two lots of stuff collected from the garage, so it’s looking emptier!

greenbee

So... what's happened over the last month?

I got a letter from my employer's pension scheme informing me I'd left... so got hold of HR and told them no one had mentioned to me that i was no longer employed, so I was still working. Apparently they fixed it the same day, but didn't get back to me - I called the provider about 10 days later and they confirmed it had been an error on the party of work payroll.

Which is probably the reason that I paid so little tax last month too... this month's tax looks about right. I also worked out that based on the fact that I'm no longer on a salary sacrifice pension, my tax calculation for this year isn't far out - the lump sum I paid last year is roughly what I'll pay into the work pension (plus the uplift into one of my SIPPs to compensate for the work scheme being rubbish). I don't seem to be able to correct the error they've made for my healthcare, but I don't think it'll have a significant impact (not like the pension). 

As this month's tax is right, I won't have as much left over for the month, so need to recalculate what I'm going to put into PBs and what goes to the mortgage. I'm going to stop adding to cash savings for a bit as they earn peanuts. I'll start topping them up again when I've had the work done that I'd planned with this lot. 

Final chunk of cash in S&S ISA invested (well, I placed the trade this morning, so it'll be done next week). 

Not much progress on the house, so I'm sending a few emails this weekend. 

Cheery_Daff

What a palaver with your pension! Hope all the wages and everything are sorted soon, what a nuisance. Sovexing having to try and sort out other people's stupid errors!

Do you have any plans for September?

greenbee

I have LOTS of plans for September... assuming that I get responses to the emails I've sent out. Obviously there's work (no travel still thankfully - I was due to be in the US, and will probably have to get round to applying for a visa at some point as I've been employed for nearly a year and I think they want to actually see me...). 

Last time my mum visited we tidied the garage - I need to shift some things round to make space for the garden furniture, which needs a good scrub having been outside all winter last year. But that means getting someone to help, as there's a HUGE table in there that has to come apart to be moved and needs two people minimum to shift it. I'm busy putting stuff on freegle/FB that I've identified as surplus to requirements in order to make some space. Mostly from the garage, but also from the pile on the bed in the spare room!

I'm also going to finish painting the bookcase that was built round the stairwell (beats having lots of spindles and a banister to dust!). My cousin did half of it and then didn't get round to coming back to do the rest. I think he thought he was a bit expensive to be doing it, but it actually works out cheaper than doing it myself if I work out what my time costs work. 

And most importantly, book people to paint the new doors, repaint the windows and the garage, find a roofer to fix the slipped slates, find someone who knows about hedges to sort the hedge out (otherwise I'll do it myself), finish cutting the long grass, weedkill the 'lawn' bit of the grass, fill the dips in the 'lawn' bit of the grass with the sieved topsoil that has been in a bucket in the garage, sow some winter salad and next year's broad beans, finish deadheading and tying in the roses, crown lift two willows and the wild pear, clear more of the stream and do some more planting...

I also have a whole lot of logs that someone was going to split for me that I need to dig out of the undergrowth and split. 

No shortage of things to do. I also plan to eat from the garden and freezer. This should save some money (the dentist will compensate for that) and get me focused on eating properly, plus take away the hassle of trying to produce so many meals (the fatigue clinic have said one meal a day is fine, low carb is important, low calorie is fine until I hit my the low end of my weight range).

My tomatoes got blight, so the freezer is full of green tomato sauce. I've got some aubergines (3...), peppers (currently all green, but they should be yellow, orange and red) and chillies (also all green) in the greenhouse, and hope to grow a few bits in there over the winter.